Families in Brent are being urged to talk about organ donation as figures show 18 people died waiting for a transplant in the last five years.

NHS Blood and Transplant is urging more people to communicate with their families during organ donation week which runs until September 9.

In May this year there were 78,295 people in Brent on the waiting list for a transplant and in the last year 44 people survived thanks to donations.

But Brent is the third highest for deaths while waiting after 42 people died in Ealing and 21 in Croydon in the past five years.

Rachel Rowson, specialist nurse covering London hospitals, said: “We don’t want people to die because of a fatal complacency that because you know you want to be an organ donor you presume your loved ones know it too. Don’t leave your family guessing what you would have wanted to happen.”

An 80-year-old grandmother was called a “f***ing bitch” in a “foul outburst” by her alleged murderer months before she was strangled with a lawnmower cord in a Colindale allotment shed, the Old Bailey heard today.